Played toss decently well, but I've never liked their playstyle. I just played till I was in silver. Now that i'm here, I have a couple question. I've been laddering as zerg all night. I love stephanos ground style of play that involves a lot of infestors so i've tried to emulate that myself. Only problem is, i don't know what needs to be microed where, and I always end up with a really low amount of drones . Like..... wwayyy to low. I start out fine but then after moving out with crawlers I start getting really low. Also, I literally don't get ANY air at all...is that bad?

I can't necessarily say that I agree 100%. The majority of players will win with macro, but there are lots of players (myself included) that made it as high as Diamond on micro alone. My macro was abysmal but I'd always be able to make miracles happen between my control and the strategies I had picked. The thing is if you do get up to Platinum or Diamond this way you're going to have a bitch of a time catching up to everyone else in terms of macro skills.

This probably works more for Protoss and Terran though. Either way, I can't see how anyone picks a race before they hit Platinum or Diamond - how can you tell what you're best at if you don't give everything a try?

When it comes to drones, something Day[9] says that I like "If you lose because you have made too many drones, that's okay."
Basically, just get in the habit of utterly overproducing drones, produce them so much it's uncomfortable to watch ... then just make you keep scouting and produce units only when he starts to move and just try and hold and suddenly, you start winning.
At least, that's a way that it's felt it's gone for me. I've recently gone from Silver to Gold as zerg and trying to push higher.

First off, you'll have the best results if you change your map scratches. Eliminate maps with an easy third, they helped you as toss, but they hurt you as Zerg. You can still take a third, but you have a way easier time denying his. A three-base toss or terran can make whatever the fuck they want, at which point you're in way worse straights even if you have more bases total.

The most micro you should be worrying about is "which direction should I a-move?" followed by nailing a few fungals or ITs as the infestors follow behind. The idea of Stephano's roach style, especially as applied to lower ladder, is that you have so much shit you just win while having a big enough economy to have that much stuff all the time. You can burn five or six roaches to kill a single immortal because you can replace those roaches way easier than he can replace the immortal.

Aim for two drones per mineral patch, which is 16 while the patches are still there. Move drones as patches get depleted, you should either have a fourth up or be in the process of winning by the time your first patch in your main dies. By the time the last patch is gone as well, you should have a the fourth fully saturated and a fifth up. If you aim for this and replace them as you build other things with them, you won't have "too few drones" problems.

What you build should be in response to what he is doing. Stephano's roach style is really strong "blind" and a great early game decision because you probably wont die no matter what he opens with. However, transitioning effectively is what makes his style so strong all the way through the game. If he commmits to something that melts roaches (marauders, immortals), it's a bad idea to only make more roaches. Marauders and immortals are great against roaches, but that strength is counteracted by the fact that they're that much worse against almost everything else.

If he's doing something that going air-heavy against would win you the game (herp derp zealot immo phoenix!, marauder/hellion/tank), you would be foolhardy to not make that transition and take the game by playing to his weaknesses unless you were certain you could continue on with roach/infestor and also take the game.

Be aware that with Stephano style drops are really great against things that don't shoot up, and if you can't have your infestors in position to deny drops, you can't deny drops. So too banshees and phoenix. Phoenix in particular are really problematic against the first few infestors - if he's playing lift & snipe with them, you can't get enough out to protect themselves.

Against mutas, keep the infestors. Most players at the silver/gold level don't split or magic box, but even at the top levels of play, fungal makes muta in ZvZ very uncomfortable. The trick is having the infestors out in time, or at least, not dying before they pop. But at the same time, most players going muta have invested all or almost all of their army into mutas. A series of single chained fungals can kill their entire army with them having no way out. Then you just mop up the "OHSHITOHSHITOHSHIT-" lings and A-move to victory with the roaches you should already have had.

A spire takes two minutes to build, and has plenty of precursor signs like "no roaches, four gas!" that hint something is up - you should never be getting surprised by mass muta, and when you do, you've not been scouting enough.

Mass voids melts to mutas, hydras, or infestors (if he's careless). You just have scout it, if you make the transition when he starts moving out, you've already lost.

vT is the matchup I hate, to be honest. It's often not "what do I do wrong" but "I need to do that, but better." My losses in vP and vZ are typically the result of poor decision-making (ie: not pulling out on an attack that had already paid for itself), while Terrans I see myself making all the right decisions, but unable to keep up on production.

The capacity to drop many mules and then mass queue reactor barracks makes Terran tier-1 macro really forgiving. As Zerg, if you miss injects, it's a compounding error, while missed production cycles on Rax are just a gap in production.

You need to be very actively scouting and reacting to what he's doing. If he's going hellions, you need those roaches. But if he's just going "A-move to win" on reactor rax, your roach production won't make it, en masse roaches don't trade favorably against marines, at which point infestors or banelings are a must (depending where in the game you are). If he's going mass marine, don't hesitate to throw down a spare hatchery per base if you can afford it - that production is invaluable later.

Against Mech Terran, I typically head Roach/Hydra/Festor into drops and then either ultras or broods depending on which he seems most vulnerable to (if he's got lots of Thor/Hellion, Ultras, against many many tanks, Broods, if you're not sure, Broods). In an ideal game: aim to survive the first tank/hellion push, take two more bases, and then smash any attempts at securing a third until he has overcommitted to tanks. He will eventually secure his third with tanks or die trying. Spire, Hive, another base, Build up brood/infestor while trading roach hydra in drops for harassment and killed production. Win.

Against Bio Terran, I like Ling/Bling, get 10 mutas, then infestor/ultra/ling. Those mutas are necessary to snipe drops, which are nearly inevitable from Bio Terran. Ling/bling, kill bio pushes. Map awareness is essential, you need to spread ovies to spot drops in time to kill them before they unload. If you're letting him unload before cleaning up, you're pulling forces out of position against them main thrust every time, better to use mutas to snipe before they can do any harm. If you can, burrow banes all over the place, make any attempt to push out a nightmare of spent scans and melted marines. If he goes Raven, do whatever you can to snipe it. Keep an eye on his main force, always have enough ling/bling or ling/festor to surround and kill any force he has. Once he's lost a few pushes to banes, you're easily enough ahead that you just need to maintain that lead (read: not fall behind on macro) until he inevitably loses. With a few fungals to support and cracklings for DPS, you just bullrush his front with maxed ling/ultra/festor and GG. Send scouts to make sure he hasn't secretly transitioned to tanks, 'cause the ultras are really not nearly as useful if all their ling support dies.

Hydras are a ... complicated answer. That mostly comes down to the fact that in most situations, there is something more cost effective you could be spending on.

Not so much that they are bad, but that they're not as great as alternatives.

That said, I love them. They have the highest single-unit DPS in the game, and if you can keep them alive they kill everything and anything.

For instance, the 3Gate+Robo immortal push that I've been seeing recently just ... stops against hydras. Their rapid fire rate makes focusing the immortals down awesome, and with the range upgrade, FFs are nearly pointless.

If you see a 3Gate+Robo and have time, make infestors, they allow you to lock the zealots in place with fungal, and ITs DPS is almost as good as hydra for bursting down immortals - and they're useful late game, as well. But if you have that moment of "Shit, he has two immortals, and will push out any minute...~!" a few hydras can help break the immortals fast enough that your roaches can deal with the rest.

I really like Roach/Hydra against mech terran, as well. Roaches in the front will draw tank fire and the two together allow you to sprint in and burst down thin or isolated tank lines.

And abusing the DPS for harassing with hydra drops is fun if not cost-effective or particularly reliable at competitive levels. Think of how much you hate stimmed marines in your mineral line, and use hydras instead.

But, burrow-move roaches are also really good against tank lines as well, and less likely to die if your opponent makes good focus fire decisions.

Mutalisks are way better harassment bang for your buck, and are a 200/200 tech investment to starting mutas, where hydra drops have a base tech cost of 450/450.

Where hydras do win for me is that they can do both those things - adding stopping power to my ground force or be great DPS-y harassment.

The last place they're great is scattered into your army against a zerg player going roach infestor when you are also going roach infestor. Add too many, they just die out too fast and the rest of your army follows suit, but add a few (1:4) and their DPS and range will kill his army just a little faster than he can kill yours.

Basically one problem you seem to be having is building things and not replacing the drone used to make it. Every time you build something, make a drone. Very important to not forget that when quickly building static defences for example.

hit your injects more often to get more larva to get drones and army. Also, follow this train of thought with zerg. Instead of thinking 'ohshit thats a big army I need a big army to counter it' think 'ohshit, hes got good production/large army, I need MORE DRONES so I can outproduce him'